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Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Today's #flashfiction The Coffee Wizard

If you sit on a top hat, does it become a bottom hat? And if so,
what does it mean from an artist standpoint for all renditions of
top hats in every medium? Anyway onto the flash fiction!

The Coffee Wizard

The King of Harlix, the mighty sorcery state of the Northern lands
was recognized most easily among rulers not by his crown or royal
colors, but by the coffee cup he always held. He called coffee “A
blessing from the gods, given to us to pull us through even the
harshest of days with its magic”.

Technically he was right, it could be called a blessing from the gods with magic.
But also someone could say the same thing of manure. Everything
bestowed upon the wizarding world had magic imbued in its all its
forms. Recent magic academy graduate Jalin majored in the culinary
magics with his specialization in beverages. He wrote his thesis on
the magical energy in coffee that boosted the human spirit along
with its natural chemical effects. (Most of the paper was filler but
he'd never admit it). Most people mocked anyone having to do with
food magic by saying, “they're just flavoring food with magic
where pepper would do just fine”.

Jalin watched the speech of the King on his current justification
of the new tax laws. He admired the King for his love of coffee and
made sure to shave his college gained neck beard to look good in
case the royal caught a glimpse of him. If anyone ruined the refined
atmosphere of the speech it certainly wouldn't be him.

The people complained but the King, while sipping coffee, managed
to come up with some excuse or reason for every objection brought
up. His father raised him to be an excellent smooth talker to keep
the people's anger at bay. He didn't need to oppress with weapons,
if he could use words.

However that didn't stop the most startling moment during the
speech. His words didn't calm every kind of person. A man leaped
from the crowd, pointed at the ruler and laughed as the King fell to
ground.

He then said, “Look how the mighty king has fallen! Do not try to
find the poison! We had our best wizards blind it from the eyes of
all poison detecting magic. You will never find the cure.”

An old wizarding proverb said that “Every good wizard knows their
magic's moment.” The proverb must have run true with Jalin. He
knew to run through the crowd, towards the large platform that the
king lay. The guards, in full disarray had mostly run to the man and
broken formation, allowing Jalin to run through.

“You may have protected it from those wizards versed in the
poison magics, but not those versed in the beverage magics!” Jalin
couldn't take the coffee from The King's body but he could use his
mighty powers to remove all cup, leaving only the poison that wasn't
consumed. With only the poison remaining in the cup it was easily
identified and an antitote procured.

Jalin soon netted himself a job of checking The King's coffee along
with the drinks of all the royal family and other nobels for poison.
And the words he famously yelled when he used his coffee magic to
reveal the poison were forever written in the history books: